Registrar [Link]

Here you can view and update all the information relevant to your registrar account.

Profile [Link]

Your profile contains information about yourself. The screen consists of 5 sections:

Your profile details as you entered them when you signed up to be a registrar. This part of the profile can be updated. Part of this information will be shown in the WHOIS for each domain name in your portfolio. All information you enter here should be directed at your clients. Your official address information (see below) is for easier communication with DNS Belgium.
Your product urls are the addresses to which clients are directed if they look for you on the public website (www.dnsbelgium.be) via the ‘Find a registrar’ tool. It is possible to enter a different URL per product and per language available on our website. This part of the profile can be updated.
Your financial information, which contains your VAT number (if you have one) and a general structured message which can be used for payments between regular invoices. Using this structured code will result in a faster processing of your payment by DNS Belgium.
Your official address information. This is the address which appears on your contract with DNS Belgium and which will also appear as your official address on all invoices. If this address changes, you should let DNS Belgium know because you can’t update it yourself. This information will never be visible to end-users; therefore, you can give DNS Belgium a direct (mobile) phone number for communication with DNS Belgium staff.
.be Registrar agreement: Here you can download your signed registrar contract.

Updating your profile details [Link]

You can update your profile details:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
You will see the profile screen immediately.
Click on the ‘Update’ button in the first section of your profile.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

The following fields are shown to end-users and should contain end-user specific information:

Organisation gives you 2 fields to enter the official name of your company. This name will be used on our public website in the list of Registrars, if you choose to be in this list.

Street (3 fields), together with Postal code, City, Province and Country code, form the complete address of your company. You should use these fields in such a way that the address looks like a real address on a letter when printed as follows:

Organisation
(Organisation)
Street
(Street)
(Street)
Postalcode City (Province)
Countrycode

Postal code should contain the postal code as is customary in the specified country. (e.g. 4 digits for Belgium, 4 digits followed by 2 letters for the Netherlands, etc.). City should contain just the name of the city and Province can be used to indicate a state or province (especially useful for the US). The country can be chosen from a drop-down list. The phone number should be in the E164 format, i.e. the ‘plus’ sign, followed by the country code, followed by a dot, followed by the phone number, without spaces, dots or hyphens. For example, the phone number of DNS Belgium is +32.16284970.

Website, the url entered here will be shown in the output of the native WHOIS. For the web-based WHOIS, the links from the section ‘Product urls’ are used.

Following fields are not shown to end-users:

Email should contain a working e-mail address that will be used for all official communication between DNS Belgium and the registrar. It is very important that this e-mail address works and is regularly read. It will be used for the following purposes:

To send the activation code to.
To receive official messages and/or newsletters from DNS Belgium.
To receive reports: it’s advisable to allow large attachments on your mail server for e-mails coming from ‘@dns.be’.

Language: From a drop-down box, you can choose a combination of the supported languages:

Dutch
French
English

This field contains the languages in which you wish to receive information. In case a message is sent in different languages, you will get them in the languages and in the order indicated. In case the message is only sent in 1 language, we will use the first language of the list.

Automated e-mail address: This field must contain the e-mail address to which the system should send automated messages (that are not picked up using the EPP <poll> command, see further). While this address will be used for structured messages, the Email (see higher) is used for unstructured messages. By doing so, it will be possible to react to the structured messages in an automated way (E.g. to inform your customer automatically when a transaction has completed successfully).

Messages that will be sent to the automated e-mail address are:

confirmation to the registrar when a transfer (away) has been executed.
information mails about monitored updates.
information mails about domain names in violation of the DNS Belgium terms and conditions.
information mail when a transfer is undone.
the watermark messages (when the money in the account of the registrar drops under some clearly defined levels, a message is sent for information).

Here is a list of all these messages.

Order Reference: can be used to have a reference printed on your invoices. For faster processing, many companies require an order number on their invoices. When the invoices are processed, the value of that field will be inserted. If you have an ‘open order’, i.e. an order that can be used for all future orders, you only have to enter this value once. If, however, you need a different number for each invoice, you must update this field at the end of each month (before the invoice processing) with the required value.

To finish the transaction, you need to click on the UPDATE button.

If all fields are entered correctly, the update will be done in the database and you will see your new registrar profile immediately.

Updating your product urls [Link]

You will appear in the registrar list on the public website if you have entered your url in this section. If you don’t enter a product url, you won’t be visible in the registrar list.

You can update your product urls:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
You will see the profile screen immediately.
Click on the ‘Update’ button in the section Product urls.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

For each product you are accredited for, you can enter a url. If you want to enter a different url per language, check the box ‘Different url per language’.

To finish the transaction, you need to click on the UPDATE button.

If all fields are entered correctly, the update will be done in the database and you will see your new urls in the ‘Find a registrar’ tool. Please note it can take up to 30 minutes to update the tool.

Settings [Link]

In your settings, you can update settings for your account.

EPP settings [Link]

In your EPP settings, you can update your EPP profile. EPP is a standard protocol for registering and managing domain names in an automated manner. It allows you to create your own web application for your customers which makes the registration of domain names very easy and quick. EPP works synchronously, which means that your EPP client will receive an immediate response from our EPP server upon a request. Of course, it requires some technical knowledge and programming skills of the registrar.

Your EPP profile consists of two parts:

If you want to start using EPP Poll, you have to enable it here. The EPP Poll command allows you to pick up messages asynchronously from the EPP server. Registrars that don’t update their profile will receive CPS e-mails. If these registrars try to issue a poll command via EPP, this will result in an “Authorization error”.
To be able to use our EPP service, we need to know the IP address(es) you will be using to connect to our EPP server. You can add a maximum of 10 different IP addresses.

Updating your EPP settings [Link]

To update your EPP settings:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Settings’.
Click ‘Update’ in the section ‘My EPP settings’.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

You can update your EPP poll settings or your IP addresses or both.

Provide all IP addresses from which you are planning to connect with our EPP server. Make sure you specify the public IP addresses.

Save your changes by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. You will immediately be able to connect to our EPP server with these IP addresses.

My registrations settings [Link]

In your My registrations settings you can provide a list of IP addresses that are allowed to connect with your account on My registrations. This will affect all your My registrations users. You can provide a maximum of 10 IP addresses in total, both IPv4 and IPv6 are allowed. In case of IPv6 you can choose to provide a single IP or a subnet of maximum /64. Larger subnets are not allowed.

Updating your My registrations settings [Link]

To update your My registrations settings:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Settings’.
Click ‘Update’ in the section ‘My registrations settings’.

You can enter up to 10 IP addresses or subnets that are allowed to connect with your account on My registrations.

Save your changes by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. These changes will be effective immediatly and also affect your already active sessions on My registrations.

Note

This is an optional feature. When no IP addresses are provided this feature is not activated. It will be possible to connect from any IP giving the right credentials.

Registrant verification settings [Link]

if you prefer to contact your registrants yourself with your own email templates about Registrant verification, you can indicate this here. You are notified via EPP Poll about which registrants are picked out and you can use info-contact v2.0 to retreive the url you can use in your email template.

Updating your Registrant verification settings [Link]

To update your Registrant verification settings:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Settings’.
Click ‘Update’ in the section ‘Registrant verification settings’.

Update your settings according to your wishes and confirm by clicking the ‘Update’ button.

Warning

If you indicate this, DNS Belgium will not send any emails to your registrants regarding Registrant verification. You are responsible for informing your Registrants yourself.

E-mail addresses [Link]

To streamline the various communication channels, various e-mail categories are added to the registrar profile. This way, different types of message (technical, legal, newsletter, etc.) can be sent to the correct address. By providing this possibility, we hope to provide the right people in the right place with the appropriate information.

If these e-mail addresses are entered, they overrule the e-mail address in your registrar profile for the appropriate categories. Up to five e-mail addresses can be entered per category. The categories are:

Communication: Newsletter. This category doesn’t default to your general e-mail address and is used solely for the DNS Belgium newsletter. To receive the newsletter, enter at least one e-mail address here.
Legal: Legal communications, defaults to the general e-mail address.
Reports: Notifications about .be registrar reports. Defaults to the general email address.
Technical: Technical communications, updates, releases, maintenance, defaults to the general e-mail address.
Abuse: Used to inform registrar about abuse (phishing, malware, defacing, …). This category doesn’t default to your general e-mail address.
Wrong data: Used to inform registrar about wrong registrant data (WHOIS details incomplete or incorrect, …), defaults to the general e-mail address

Updating your e-mail addresses [Link]

To update your e-mail addresses:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘E-mail addresses’.
Click ‘Update’.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

Your general e-mail address can be updated via your profile.

You can enter up to five e-mail addresses for each category. After clicking on the UPDATE button, your e-mail categories are active.

Exports [Link]

On a daily basis, we generate an overview of all the domain information of each registrar. From these exports, you should be able to check your database against the DNS Belgium database.

For each export, you can see:

When the export was generated (max 24 hours ago).
The two formats in which the exports are available: XML and CSV. Both contain the same information. The CSV format is suitable for import into an Excel spreadsheet.

The ‘Registrations’ export contains the following columns:

domain: the domain name concerned (U-label or LDH label).
registeredOn: the date of creation (registration) of the domain name.
invoiceMonth: month in which the domain name will be renewed, i.e. on the last day of this month at midnight.
registrant: the alias used to identify the registrant (i.e. domain name holder).
deletionDate: if the domain name is scheduled for deletion, you find the deletion date here. If not, this value is 0.
availableOn: if the domain name is in quarantine, this will be the date when it becomes available.
status: This can be ‘REGISTERED’, ‘QUARANTINE’, …

The ‘Name server groups’ export contains only 1 column:

name: the name server group concerned.

The ‘Key groups’ export contains only 1 column:

name: the key group concerned.

The ‘Contacts’ export contains the following columns:

alias: a unique identifier for the contact.
type: the type of the contact (possible values: BILLING, ONSITE, TECHNICAL, REGISTRANT).
status: the status of the contact.

Reports [Link]

You can find your .be Registrar Report here. It contains data to measure your quality of service and also contains a section with valuable BI data. You can benchmark your data with data from your registrar category or top 10 and top 50 of all registrars.

Go to the full documentation of the .be Registrar Report.

Users [Link]

As a registrar, you are attributed a user ID that is identical to your registrar ID. This administrator user has a limited set of privileges, he has no privileges to execute domain management transactions.

The administrator user is the only one who can create other users. As a registrar, you should create a user ID for each of your employees. For each individual user, the administrator can define which information this user can see and which transactions he or she can execute. This gives you better security (check which user executed a transaction/delete user when employee leaves).

Creating a new user [Link]

To create a new user:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Users’.
Click ‘New’.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

User ID: this is the name of the user you want to grant access to the web interface.

Password: The password that this user will have to type in order to get access to the registrar site and/or ‘My registrations’.

Permissions: Most of the labels are self-explanatory, the following might need some extra information.

Access to ‘My registrations’: must be checked if you want to give the user access to ‘My registrations’. If you do not check this box, the user will have no access to My registrations.
View financial data: this privilege determines whether the end-user can see the status of the account at the top of his screen. Users with this permission will also be able to do online payments.
Update registrar EPP settings: check this box if this user is allowed to change the EPP settings of the registrars, i.e. Update addresses to connect to the EPP interface and set EPP poll notifications.
Invoicing info for billing: the user can see all invoicing info and will also be able to do online payments.
Update Domain Shield: the user can do Domain Shield actions. This permission is set by DNS Belgium. Users with this permission, don’t have permissions to execute transactions.

If the new user is only given the permission ‘Access to My registrations’, he has read-only access to ‘My registrations’. He will not be able to execute transactions.

Check or uncheck the relevant permissions. After clicking on CREATE, the user will be created. He will see a menu that corresponds to the permissions that he has been granted.

Warning

Please note that ‘Users’ have been created for internal use. Although a user may be restricted with respect to the functions he or she can execute, within these functions, (s)he has access to ALL data.

This feature is therefore not intended to give your business partners (resellers) access to the web application. Each reseller would have access to the data of other resellers, which creates a serious security problem.

User details [Link]

To view the details of a user:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Users’.
If you know the user ID, enter it in the search field.
Click on ‘Search’.
A list of users matching the search criteria will appear below the search form.
Choose the appropriate user from the list by clicking its user ID.

The next screen shows the details of the user and gives you some relevant links:

Update permissions: give the user more/less permissions. Check or uncheck the relevant permissions.
Change password: change the user’s password. Note that you can also allow the user to change his own password.
Reset 2-step: if the user has lost his mobile device, or has switched to a new one, 2-step verification can be reset with this button. Afterwards, the user can setup 2-step verification on his new device. If the administrator user has this problem, DNS Belgium should be contacted.
Temp 2-step: if the user has misplaced his mobile device, or the battery is dead, a temporary phone key can be generated for the user with this button. It is recommended to be in contact with the user while doing this, since the temporary key is available for 90 seconds. This option is not available for the administrator user.
Delete: delete the user from the database. The user won’t be able to log in to the registrar website anymore.
Login attempts: show the log in attempts made by this user.

Note

For Domain shield users, you can only view login attempts. These users are managed by DNS Belgium. Contact our Support team to make changes to these users.

Updating/Deleting a user [Link]

To update/delete a new user:

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Users’.
If you know the user ID, enter it in the search field, otherwise click ‘Search’.
A list of users matching the search criteria will appear below the search form.
Choose the appropriate user from the list by clicking its user ID.
Choose the action you want to perform for this user.
Confirm the action below the form.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

Hitpoints [Link]

When a registrar sends bad EPP commands or invalid web forms, the hitpoint counter is updated accordingly. The account is blocked for 24 hours when a registrar reaches its maximum number of hitpoints. This is to ensure that problems on the side of the registrar do not affect the registry.

When you’re blocked, an error message will appear on all screens in ‘My registrations’.

Registrars are allowed to unblock their account themselves once every calendar month. However, it is strongly advised that you find out why your hitpoint limit was exceeded before unblocking your account.

Your hitpoints screen shows all information regarding hitpoints:

The number of hitpoints you have received since the counter was last reset.
The maximum number of hitpoints you are allowed to have (this is based on the size of your portfolio).
The number of unblocks you have already done yourself this month.
The maximum number of unblocks you are allowed to do yourself (this is set to one per month).

When you have exceeded the number of hitpoints you are allowed to have, you will see extra information:

Hitpoints limit exceeded on: The date and time when you exceeded your hitpoint limit (in CET).
You are blocked until: The date and time until when you are blocked (in CET).
In case you haven’t unblocked yourself this month, you will also see an UNBLOCK button below the details information.

Below the details, you see an overview of the transactions that caused hitpoints. This feature helps in detecting faulty transactions, software bugs or human errors.

The displayed table contains the following columns:

Date: the date and time of the offending transaction.
Object: The object affected by the command (e.g. Domain name, contact alias, ns-group name, etc.).
Communication: The type of command (e.g. NEW_DOMAIN, UPD_DOMAIN, etc.).
Reference: A system-generated unique identifier for the command.
Hitpoints: The number of hitpoints allocated.

Note!

Registrars are encouraged to always check the error codes of failed transactions. We remind you that resending a faulty transaction (a transaction that already returned an error code) will result in another error code being returned.

The rules that apply to hitpoints and unblocking counters are as follows:

Unless the registrar unblocks himself, his account will be blocked for 24 hours starting from the moment the last faulty transaction occurred.
Hitpoint counters are cleared each night at 00:00 (midnight, CET).
Hitpoint limits are recalculated each night at 00:00 (midnight, CET).
One self-unblock is allowed per calendar month. A calendar month begins at 00:00 CET on the first day of the month and ends at 23:59 CET on the last day of the month.
The unblock count is reset at the end of a calendar month, that is, at 23:59:59 CET on the last day of the month.

Unblocking your account [Link]

When the hitpoint limit has been reached, the ‘Hitpoints’ section changes accordingly.

Click on ‘Registrar’ in the left menu.
Click on ‘Hitpoints’.
Below the details section, you should have an UNBLOCK button, if you haven’t unblocked yourself yet this month. If you’ve already unblocked yourself this month, you should contact DNS Belgium. Work out why you were blocked and fix the problem before asking DNS Belgium to unblock you.
Click ‘Unblock’.

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

The Hitpoints section now reflects the new account situation. Your hitpoints are reset to zero and the unblock counter has been incremented by one unit.

Top 100 [Link]

The top 100 shows your position in relation to other registrars based on the total number of domain names in your portfolio. You can see how many domain names each registrar has and the proportion this represents to the total number of .be domain names.

Top 30 [Link]

The top 30 shows your position in relation to other registrars based on the transactions you have executed during the last month. The transactions counted are all the paying transactions, i.e. new registrations, transfers, etc. You can see the number of transactions and the position each registrar had last month.

This menu item can also be accessed directly from the start page of the registrar site (if the user has permissions).

Change password [Link]

Each user with the permission to change his password, can do this here. The screen consists of 2 sections, the second section is only visible to the administrator user:

Modify your password: The password to access the Registrar site.
Modify your EPP password: This is the password to connect to our EPP server.

In the first section of the screen, you can modify your password, these are needed on the registrar website and application. Please note both have to be entered even if you only want to change one of them. Both should consist of at least 8 characters, containing at least 1 uppercase, 1 lowercase and 1 numeric character.

The second section of the screen gives you the possibility to change your EPP password (only available to the administrator user).